My name is Scott Rieckens, and I'm new to the world of smart money management. I'm new to the world of financial independence and early retirement. I'm new, but I've totally immersed myself in it. I've immersed myself so much, in fact, that I've spent the past eighteen months creating a feature film about FIRE. (FIRE is the clumsy abbreviation for “financial independence/retire early”. Basically, the FIRE movement is all about saving big so that you can choose to live however you want.)

“You've been in a unique position over the past year,” J.D. said when I asked him what I should write about. “You've had amazing access to a variety of people who think and write and teach about financial independence and early retirement. You've been able to hear what they think and say in private as well as public. What about sharing your biggest takeaways from this experience?”

Perfect! I can dish out everyone's dirty laundry and avoid posting those embarrassing stories on my own site. I'ts a win-win for me, really. J.D. is such a sucker.

You ready? Let's go behind the scenes of the early retirement movement. Here are five things I learned while filming Playing with Fire.

Lesson #1: The FIRE Movement Is Polarizing

When I started down the rabbit hole of early retirement blogs and podcasts, I was swept up in the euphoria that many others have experienced: “Holy moley, I'm going to retire in less than ten years!”

Coming from fifteen years of a spendy, financially-illiterate lifestyle, this was a huge revelation that gave me hope, joy, excitement, and…butterflies. Imagine the control over your life! Imagine the freedom! Think of all the ideas I will chase, the whims I can explore! Think of what this means for my family!

Somehow, though, I missed the blog post or podcast episode that explained just how difficult it can be to live within the FIRE framework while the people around you wonder what the hell you're talking about.

“But I like my job.”

“That sort of lifestyle sounds terrible.”

“Are you joining a cult?”

These reactions dampened my enthusiasm. Nobody had warned me that there might be people who thought we were crazy for pursuing financial freedom.

Now, as FIRE is spreading through the mass media, there's been push-back from unexpected corners. Financial guru Suze Orman says she hates the FIRE movement. The comments on articles and interviews around the web are often negative — even hateful.

I wasn't expecting that. How can something so positive be viewed with so much negativity?

Since starting our project, the number-one thing we hear from early retirement folks is: “I really hope this film makes it easier to share FIRE with my friends and family. Every time it comes up, things get weird and my already-socially-anxious-self gets all clammy.”

I can say unequivocally that we have the same hopes.

Our society's relationship with money seems completely broken. When the best-selling vehicles are full-sized $60,000 trucks, yet 70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, it seems the general population is managing money at a fifth-grade level. (And again, that used to be me before I found FIRE.)

Can you believe it? A year ago today, I returned to the helm of Get Rich Slowly. Eight-and-a-half years after selling the site, I bought it back.

During the past twelve months, GRS has been through three distinct phases as I've struggled to figure out my focus and direction.

First, I tried to manage the blog as a “curation engine”, collecting the best money stories from around the web.

You folks wanted more of my voice, though, so I spent three months running the site like I used to in the olden days: I averaged an article a day between January and March.

An article a day was too much — for you and for me. Since April, I've worked to find a balance. It seems that two or three articles per week is a good pace.

In my first year back in charge of Get Rich Slowly, I published 209 articles and sent out 38 weekly email updates. (Each email update is essentially a separate article, most of which is a roundup of cool money stories from around the web.)

Let's take a quick look at where we've been and where we're going.

Twelve Favorites from Twelve Months

Conventional wisdom nowadays is that a blog must be focused to be successful. It has to serve a distinct niche audience. That's smart advice, but I don't follow it.

I love the freedom I have when writing at Get Rich Slowly. I love that I'm able to explore a wide range of topics, from how to get out of debt to how to invest to how to be happy. Not every article is applicable to every reader, but I'm okay with that. Even Money Boss (the site I ran from 2015 to 2017) felt too limiting. Here at GRS, I have no contraints. I'm able to write what I want when I want, and I think that leads to better work.

Just for fun, here are twelve of my favorite pieces from the past year:

Your lifetime wealth ratio (and how to calculate it). Your lifetime wealth ratio (or LWR) compares how much you have today with how much you've earned during your time in the workforce. It's a way to look at the wealth you've created and gauge how well you've done at keeping that wealth.

How to prepare for an uncertain future. Our financial decisions are based on our expectations for the future. We base our expectations on past experience — both our own experience and the experiences of others. Generally speaking, there's nothing wrong with this method of planning. It works. But what happens when the old patterns break? What happens when past data becomes meaningless?

Start where you are. My main message to family and friends who find themselves at forty or fifty and feel behind the curve is: Don't panic. All is not lost. You're not too late. This isn't a contest. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

How to build a wealth snowball. Spend less than you earn — that's the basic rule of personal finance. If you spend less than you earn, you'll build a wealth snowball that will allow you do do the things you dream of doing and to have the things you dream of having.

The six stages of financial freedom. I used to believe that financial freedom meant just one thing: Having enough money that you never had to work again. Over the years, I've learned that financial independence exists on a continuum. It's not “all or nothing”, but an ever-increasing range of options. It's a process.

The high cost of homeownership. For both entertainment and catharsis, I spent some time talking about the high costs of homeownership. My experiences seem typical. Everyone I talk to about homeownership has similar tales to tell. I'll bet you do too!

How much should you spend in retirement? I've noticed that a lot of retirees — early retired or otherwise — struggle to know how much they should spend. I believe this dilemma exists for a couple of reasons.

The forever fallacy. Everything changes. You change. Your circumstances change. The people around you change. Nothing is forever. The challenge then is to balance this concept — everything changes — with living in the present. You must learn to enjoy today while simultaneously preparing for possible tomorrows.

The advantages of buying and owning a home. I've written a lot about buying and owning a home. Much of what I've written could be construed as anti-homeownership. But I'm not anti-homeownership. Here are some of the reasons I choose to own a home.

The thin green line: Why you should be skeptical of financial blogs. The trouble with the rise of blogging as a business is that the business has become the focus for most financial blogs. Financial bloggers aren't making decisions based on what's best for their audience. They're making decisions based on what's likely to bring them the most income.

Potential needs versus actual needs: Re-writing my financial blueprint. I've begun to question my compulsion to buy things before I'm ready to use them. I'm questioning my tendency to accumulate things because I might want to use them or I might need them someday. What if I instead gave myself permission to buy whatever I need and/or want — but only if I'm going to use it right away?

Here's where I need your help! As I consider which topics to tackle in the future, I'd love to know what financial dilemmas you're wrestling with today. What's your biggest pain point when it comes to money? Also, what's your most recent big financial victory? Finally, what challenges do you anticipate in the near future?

Your feedback will help me choose which subjects to write about in the months to come.

Where We're Headed

The past twelve months have been both fun and frustrating. I've had a blast re-engaging with you folks (and gradually getting re-acquainted with long-time readers). Plus, I truly enjoy writing about money. It's my calling in life.

At the same time, I'm not so fond of the business and technical side of site management. A decade ago, this wasn't such a big deal. Blogs (and the internet, in general) were less sophisticated and one person could run and manage a site without much hassle.

In 2018, however, running a site is more complicated — especially a site that's 12-1/2 years old with an archive of 5000+ articles. If you've been following along, you know how much I hate dealing with SEO, monetization, social media, marketing, and other similar tasks. Plus, running a big blog nowadays is expensive.

During my first year back, GRS has produced roughly $20,000 in revenue. That's great! Unfortunately, the site has incurred roughly $30,000 in expenses. That's not so great. (And that doesn't even include the costs to repurchase the blog!) I don't need to make big bucks here, but I'm not a fan of working long hours while paying for the privilege.

Update! I tabulated some exact numbers. GRS produced $17,219.69 in revenue during the past year. Site-specific expenses — not counting costs for software, tools, A/V gear, etc. that I bought for the umbrella company — were $28,300.93. That's a net loss of $11,081.24. Translation: I'm currently paying about $1000 per month out of my pocket to keep this site running…plus all of my time. Plus re-acquisition costs.

That's why I've decided to collaborate with my pal Tom Drake, the brains behind MapleMoney (a Canadian personal-finance site). Tom not only knows about the technical and marketing stuff, but he actually enjoys it. What a weirdo!

With Tom diving into the behind-the-scenes tasks, I'm free to focus on my passion and strength: writing.

For the rest of 2018, I intend to publish frequently but on an irregular schedule. Topics will be random and varied. But our goal as we head into 2019 is to develop an actual (loose) publishing schedule that adheres to (loose) monthly themes. Our aim is to *gasp* prepare a lot of material in advance. We believe that doing so will free me (and the rest of the team) to do more creative stuff instead of constantly playing catch-up.

My dream is that a year from now, after we've finished renovating the site, Get Rich Slowly will be an excellent, easy-to-use resource for anyone searching for financial help. At the same time, I want it to be an entertaining and interesting place for regular readers to visit. Most of all, I want it to be an outlet for me to write about money. Because honestly, that's all I want to do.

I've been blogging since before “blog” was even a word. (I wrote my first blog post twenty-one years ago last Thursday!) I've had a financial blog for a dozen years now. In that time, things have changed in a variety of ways. For instance:

Blogging has become more business-like and less personal. A decade ago, most blogs — even money blogs — were rooted in the author's individual experience. Nowadays, most big financial blogs have a minimal editorial voice. They're much like money magazines used to be.

Audience interaction is limited. In the mid-2000s, it wasn't unusual for blog articles to get dozens (or hundreds) of comments. This site has old articles with over 1000 comments. Nowadays, many blogs have removed reader comments…because they receive so few reader comments. And when blogs do allow comments (as here at GRS), they're scarcer than they used to be.

Today, most bloggers want to make money. In fact, that's their primary goal. When I started blogging in 1997, there was no way to make money from it. When I launched this site in 2006, my primary goal was to get out of debt. My secondary goal was to help others get out of debt. Yes, I wanted to make money — but that was only my third aim. It was almost an after-thought. (This was, in part, because it was more difficult to make money blogging in 2006.)

Most of the changes in the world of blogging are neutral. They're neither good nor bad. They just are. But I think the move to a more money-centric approach often does a disservice to readers — to people like you.

How I Became a Blogging Cynic

Twelve years ago, if I read something on a financial blog, I generally accepted it at face value. If somebody recommended a book, I trusted their sincerity. If they wrote about the best bank accounts, I believed they were telling me about the best bank accounts. If they raved about a company or service they liked, I had no reason to doubt them.

Today, I'm much more skeptical. Why? Because most of my friends are bloggers, and I know what they think and say in private.

Today, for instance, I saw an article from a colleague I respect. He was raving about a financial service. The problem? I'm damn sure he's never used the service himself and the only reason he's recommending it is he gets a commission on it. With his huge audience, he can make big bucks by promoting this company.

Or there was the time I overheard another colleague talking with her partner about an advertiser who had just cancelled their affiliate program. (An affiliate program is, essentially, a commission program. You provide a sale or a lead to a company, and you get a kickback.) “If they're not going to offer an affiliate program,” my colleague told her partner, “we're not going to promote them. We need to go back and change articles to feature a company that does offer an affiliate program.”

I wanted to call out my colleague on that last one but I didn't. I bit my tongue. I think her actions were shady, but I realize that not everyone shares the same values. What isn't right for me and my business might be perfectly fine for her. What's perfectly fine for me and my business might seem shady to somebody else.

I'm not willing to criticize other financial bloggers for what they do. I'm not in their shoes. Their business is not my business. They're free to make choices that adhere to their personal ethics. (My hope is that they're at least considering ethics when they make these choices.)

But I have to say: The stuff I hear and see behind the scenes has made me cynical. I've become skeptical of the stuff I read on other money blogs. (Not on all money blogs — I'll recommend some I trust later — but on many of them.) [Read more…]

My name is J.D. Roth. I started Get Rich Slowly in 2006 to document my personal journey as I dug out of debt. Then I shared while I learned to save and invest. Twelve years later, I've managed to reach early retirement! I'm here to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you get rich slowly. Read more.

If you like this website, you should check out the year-long Get Rich Slowly course. It contains everything I've learned about saving and investing during 12 years of writing about money. Buy it here.

General Disclaimer: Get Rich Slowly is an independent website managed by J.D. Roth, who is not a trained financial expert. His knowledge comes from the school of hard knocks. He does his best to provide accurate, useful info, but makes no guarantee that all readers will achieve the same level of success. If you have questions, consult a trained professional.

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